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Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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One of the major points of the thousand-yard solar system models and things
on a similar scale is to address the misperceptions people have from the
common illustrations of the solar system in which the planet diameters are
shown to be a non-trivial fraction of the orbital diameter.  If you show a
solar system model in which, no matter the scale, you can see planets as
anything significantly larger than a pinpoint when you are zoomed out far
enough to see the whole model, then you are probably adding to this
misperception.

Simple rules of thumb to begin this planning process: Earth diameter is
roughly 1/100th of the solar diameter and Earth is roughly 100 solar
diameters from the Sun.  So if the solar diameter is 10 meters, Earth should
be 10 cm diameter, 1 kilometer away. At this scale, Pluto would be roughly
40 km  away and the Oort cloud would be more than one Earth circumference
away!

If you choose a 1 meter sun, Earth is 1 cm, which is large enough to
carefully paint with some accuracy, and is 100 meters away, which might
still fit within large science centers.  Pluto would be 4 km away, and the
Oort cloud would be 5000 km away, only 1/8th of the way around the world.

For a 1 km solar system (to Pluto) you would need a 25 cm sun
(volleyball-sized) and a 2.5 mm (peppercorn-sized) Earth, 25 meters away
from the sun.  We have walked this off as a teacher professional development
activity.  We did it in the Fall and so we used plastic Trick-or-Treat
pumpkins as the sun and used them to hold the other planets, too. Teachers
love this activity and are always amazed at the true scale of the solar
system.

Dave Smith

On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 5:40 AM, Lynn Baum <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
> institutions.
>
> *****************************************************************************
>
> A number of years ago the Museum of Science in Boston created a Community
> Solar System which also was in scale for size and distance. Planets were
> spread throughout Boston, Cambridge and Newton, MA.
> Deb Sovinee was the designer and Mary Dussault was the content developer.
>
> Lynn Baum
> Senior Content Developer
> Jan Crocker Museum Associates
> www.jc-ma.biz
>
>
> On 4/11/11 10:32 PM, Joe Ruggiero wrote:
>
>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
>> institutions.
>> *****************************************************************************
>>
>>
>> Hey Jeff Buddy,
>>
>> This is a tricky subject - one scale or another always seems out of scale.
>>
>> Anyway, I seem to remember Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff has some kind
>> of "Planet Walk" which I think uses the proper scale for both distance and
>> size. Check this out:
>>
>> http://www.lowell.edu/blog/?p=45
>>
>> Joe R
>> www.TheExhibitGuys.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/11/2011 1:13 PM, Jeff Courtman wrote:
>>
>>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
>>> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
>>> institutions.
>>> *****************************************************************************
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi all: we've been asked to identify some vendors who are capable of
>>> producing scaled models of the planets (and poor little pluto :( ) If
>>> you have any suggestions, let me know! Or if you have any seen any great
>>> installations... We are talking about a 'sun' with up to a 30' diamenter.
>>>
>>> I did look at the archives, but didn't find too much except one
>>> reference from 2008...
>>>
>>> And yes: if we don't use a non-linear scale for size, we'll certainly
>>> have to use one for distance!
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Jeff C.
>>> Museumscapes, LLC.
>>>
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> For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the
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-- 
David L. Smith
Da Vinci Science Center
Allentown, PA
http://www.davinci-center.org

"Kids have a remarkable capacity for intensity"
  - Leon Botstein, President of Bard College

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